The Works of Fire
by zestychicken2
Summary: My day was horrible, terrible, awful! First the clock, then the plant comment, then the water, training, fireworks and rain! But in the end... It all turned out okay. I finally got to tell Kimiko that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her... RxK


**The Works of Fire**

**I never thought I would have had a worse Fourth of July. Of course... I've only had about four of them, but still! Everything in the whole world goes wrong, and it's so stupid! But, in the end, I figured out all of that was totally worth it. I got to finally confess my feelings... Ded.2.Stormy Dreamer!**

This oneshot is dedicated to one person, and one thing... One being the person... Stormy Dreamer, who totally wanted a a cute little fluff! Well... I offered, but still... And two being the fourth of July. Woot! Okay... On with the... disclaimer!

**Disclaimer: I don't own Xiaolin Showdown... Or the Fourth of July for that matter...**

The ticking of the rather loud clock on the wall few feet away from the bedroom woke me up. I couldn't stand that thing. I had begged Master Fung to take it down... But of course, what does he do? He leaves it up!

Ever since everyone had moved into an actual room, that clock had been annoying me to death! I let everyone pick before me, but still I think I got the best one. Except maybe for Kimiko's room. Omi picked the smallest, as it was morst accustom to his cubicle little space, and Clay get the coziest looking one, where you could hang stuff on the walls, and leave stuff all over.

That left Kim and I. Oh my god, had we fought over that room like nothing ever before. I cannot believe how mad she was, I mean... I'd never seen anything that mad in my life! Not even Clay was angier when I told Omi to fill up his ten gallon hat with milk.

We were both into the same type of thing now... Which meant, of course we'd want the same space. Apparently, she had the one up on me...

??

_I watched her fall back on the bed, and sigh. But, suddenly something jumped inside of me. I wanted this room. And I was going to claim it as my own!_

_"Hey Kim?" I asked, stopping infront of her door frame. Her head shot up, her cheeks a little redder than before. I wondered what her problem was. That one small thought of her blushing tugged slightly into my mind, but I quickly rammed it back out. There was no way she would fall for a guy like me... _

_Clay and myself were now happily eighteen. A privilege that I LOVED rubbing in Kimiko's face. She absolutely hated it, which is exactly why I did it. It gave me her undivided attention, even if that glance was out of anger or annoyance. It didn't matter, it was still a glance, and that's definately what counted. She was still seventeen, and Omi was sixteen._

_Everyone had grown taller, and more mature. All three of our hair had grown out, Kimiko's growing the fastest and the prettiest. Of course, I wouldn't call a guy's hair pretty. That would be sort of weird. Omi was still as bald as ever, but it didn't matter to any of us... He had simply gotton over the fact he had no hair one day. _

_"Hmm?" She was reading a magazine now, while I was thinking and pondering these thoughts. I caught a glimpse at the article, and she was reading something about wanting to get married at a young age. She looked pretty interested, as I could see one heading titled as 'PROS' and one titled as 'CONS'. It was all very amusing in my opinion._

_"I was wondering." I smirked for just one moment, before looking as innocent as possible. "In my room... There isn't enough room for the surf board to be on my wall... Just hanging there, looking down at the world... And, I don't want to leave it standing against the wall, because the one, I just waisted like a gazillion dollars on a stand for the wall, and two it would get ruined."_

_"Are you hinting something, Rai?" She asked, her eyes not moving from the article she was scanning._

_"Yes." I answered as bluntly and as monotone as I thought._

_"Okay..." She got up, marked her page, and shut the magazine. "What do you want? This room, a kiss, my - "_

_"Kiss?"_

_"I um..." She blushed insanely before shaking her head. "I never said kiss... I said diss. Yes, that's what I said..." She sounded as though she were trying to convince herself instead of me. But, I already knew, as she told Clay everything, and all of the important stuff, Clay told me. IT was a perfect cylce. Nothing wrong with taking your place in the circle of life..._

_Okay, so it was sort of wrong. But, at the same time... I needed to find out. Kimiko thought I was hot. I mean - What girl doesn't? Wow, I can be conceited sometimes... But oh well... She also said she had a small crush on me. When I say crush, I mean the size of half an atom._

_It was sort of like this... She'd drop hints that she was totally falling for me... Sometimes those hints would be fake, and make me upset, but sometimes she didn't take them anywhere. But, of course this only confused and upset me even further._

_Life was so confusing!_

_"Anyways..." I shook my head, throwing my thoughts to the corners of my mind. "Yes... I would like this room."_

_"Are you always this direct?" She picked up her magazine and put it on a pile. I could only nod, as I didn't know where this was going. Glancing at the wall behind me, out the door for a reason unknown to me at the time, she winced and turned back qiuckly, trying to hide her excitement. "Alright, but you owe me a shopping trip." To this, I immediately stomped my foot like a child._

_"Kiiiim!" I whined, trying to annoy her so she wouldn't want me to go._

_"If you want this room, you're going to have to..." Finally, deciding that the room was so much more worth it, I quickly crossed my arms, put on an angry face, and huffed, trying to mock her as much as possible._

_"Fine!" I said exasperated. "I'll even help you move out!" Kimiko only shook her head and smiled, taking things down from the shelve to move..._

_??_

That unknown thing she looked at? The stupid ticking clock! It annoys the freaking hell out of me, and I cannot believe I never noticed it until AFTER I moved into the room.

I sigh and sat up, looking into the mirror on the wall. I was now nineteen, and Kimiko eighteen. After our room change, I found out that Kimiko's long time boyfriend, Kosuke had just broken up with her. She sobbed, and bawled, using me to vent. But, I didn't mind.

After four years with the girl, I realized I loved comforting her when she most needed it, and that's what made me happy. When her crying finally stopped, she had looked up to me with shimmering blue eyes. And it was then, that we shared our first kiss.

It was actually her first kiss... My first kiss had been when I was fourteen with a girl named Adrenia. We broke up soon after, as she found a liking for my best friend. Of course, he had never shared anything more with her than just a little flirting, but nevertheless... After that, in my book anyways, she was officially branded a whore.

And, after that kiss... We became an item. And here we are, going out for a year after that. But, even though the short relationship, we knew for a fact we'd be together for ever. It may sound like a total chick thing, but as long as I have her... I could sound as femi as possible and still be happy!

I tore myself away from my thoughts, and got out of bed, poking my head outside the door. Glancing at the, only sometimes useful clock, I saw it was five in the morning. Just as well I was getting up... Master Fung would have Dojo come dump water on me to train.

Yet another thing that sucked about being leader... Of course, I couldn't complain. Finally Omi let go of the apprentice thing. That sure took forever. And, everyone's lack of trust, cause I changed sides? Completely gone!

As I was walking slowly in the hall, my eyes down at my slowly moving feet, I bumped into something. At first I thought it was some sort of plant that would crash to the floor if I dropped it, so instinctively I wrapped my arms around it to stop it from falling.

"Raimundo!" A female voice hissed. "Don't scare me like that!" My head snapped up to see the petite Japanese girl, glaring playfully with a trace of a grin in her features up at me.

"Sorry! I thought I - " I stopped mid sentence. Figuring I'd probably just get slapped for saying outloud that I thought she was a plant wouldn't be the best thing. So I simply kissed her, and dipped her backwards.

At first, her squeal was forced into my mouth, but then she wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me. When I pulled her back up, and yanked backwards, I smirked. "Happy Fourth of July Kimi."

"Thank you Rai!" She put a hand on my shoulder, and kissed my cheek, then turned back around. "What are you doing up this early?"

"I figured that maybe I would let myself up before Dojo got me with the water."

"I would warm you up..." She teased.

"What are you doing up? I never see anyone up this early. Which is why - " The plant thing just kept coming back, so I decided to sound like I was trailing off, intrigued by what she was doing.

"I'm picking out some fireworks... That will be useful this year. And planning on what I should do to get more and - Rai! Look out!"

I turned, only to see Dojo splash ice cold water all over me. I yelped and fell backwards into Kimiko's stash, ruining all the fireworks because they were wet. But, like every wonderous couple... She thankfully didn't blame me.

"Dojo!" She growled. "You just ruined the fireworks." Dojo shrugged, seemingly unphased. "You know, the bright lights you love to watch with Master Fung?" Then his eyes got wide.

"Yo! Kid!" He slithered up to my shoulder and knocked on his head. "Is anyone home?" He peered inside my ear. I simply swatted him away, and he squished back onto the floor. "Why'd you ruin them?"

I sighed, thinking it was simply hopeless. "I'm sorry Dojo. I'll go buy more after I'm done training." I sluggishly dragged my feet along, deciding to ignore the constant protest of me leaving from the raven - haired girl.

??

Hours later, my luck was going absolutely no better. Master Fung trained me until I was basically a pile of jello, and ontop of that... He didn't even have the decency to let me get some water before he wanted me to train with the rest of the team.

He made me do extra, because I wasn't training with Kimiko in hand - to - hand combat properly. Could someone blame me? I was a pile of jelly against a kick ass, and very sexy, girl... There was no way I could compete. Her good lucks would kill a guy in three seconds.

Okay, so I was exaggerating... It would only take two seconds... I smiled at my thought, and found myself trying to relax on the roof with a huge gallon of water. I didn't really want to talk to everyone else, as I watched the sun way up in the sky reflect off of everything before.

I began getting very poetic thoughts, when something hit me. It was the fourth tonight... And I had been thinking about asking that for a very long time now. After all, we knew it would be together, right? I realized then that I had to get fireworks.

Oh the agony...!

??

Finally. Dusk was coming, and I had everything set up perfect. All the fireworks were right in rows, and I got all the right kinds too. I had even told everyone that I wanted to do the firework shows this year, even though most of the time, it was Clay and Omi while Kimiko and I sat back and laughed at them fight over which to do next.

It had been a nice four years, but god damnit, I wanted the fifth to be perfect. Of course, it was going to be a very grand date... Easy to remember. 7/4... How perfect was that?

But, like fate would have it...

It began to rain.

Why... Seriously, why on every single day that I TRY and make perfect for someone else... It always ends up backfiring! Why does that always happen to me? Why not the unfortunate guy that lives three blocks down from my house with the five pit bulls. Very mean dogs... Screaming in portuguese to shut them up is not the most fun thing to do either.

Ontop of that, it takes like French and Portuguese mix to do that. Honestly, why the hell would someone who was living in Rio know French?? People confuse me in the world...

Quickly, I used all that I could muster to quickly raise the rain off in an invisible force field... I wouldn't be able to hold it up long, as I had a lot of area to cover.

??

"Raimundo!" She shrieked, her eyes still shut. "Where in the world are we going?"

"Just don't look, okay??" He sneered playfully at her, and sat her down on a classic white and red checkered cloth. When she opened her eyes, their was a basket of food, and a beautiful lake that shimmered in the rain bouncing off the shield.

She gasped, sitting down, and letting her skirt make a circle around her. "It's amazing Raimundo! The water! It's so pretty!" She kissed him, and for a split second, the rain was allowed to fall, letting only a small sprinkle of drops fall on them.

She smiled, and opened the basket, but... Raimundo stopped her. He wanted her to pay attention. But, she only looked at him with questioning eyes.

Thinking of a lie fast, he spit out, "Clay is going to start the fireworks soon."

"I thought you were doing it this year."

"I set a little something up. All he needs to do was light them. There's a reason I got you away from the temple." Oh how clueless the poor girl could be.

Minutes passed by, and still nothing. Kimiko kept glancing at the food, waiting for something to happen. I had to get up and run to Clay really fast, finding him stuffing his mouth with a rather large amount of peanuts.

"Since when do you eat peanuts?" I asked, thinking of all the steak he inhaled the other day.

"I'm on a diet okay?"

Raimund glared, and told him to set off the fire works one after another. Clay nodded, thinking it was a bit weird that the finally - type display should be first, but I told him to trust me.

"Oh and Clay!" I called, walking swiftly backwards. "Lay off the peanuts! You look like you gained!" I winked and turned back around, sprinting back to Kimiko before Clay could cuss at me with his Texas accent.

Just as I sat, fireworks started shooting into the sky. I had bought them with a timer, where they would go into the air, and by some weird gun - powder force, stay high enough until all of them were up there... This was absolutely perfect. Everything was going to work.

I closed my eyes, and they were shut for longer than I expected them to be. The wind shield was taking a lot of my energy, but this would definately be worth it!

As the colors shot up into the sky... They spelled out simple words. Words, that with every streak, Kimiko's eyes got wider and wider... As my grin got more and more stretched as time went on.

In the end... The sparkles and the streaks spelled out a simple question.

_**Will You Marry Me?**_

She squealed at me, and turned, just in time to see me down on one knee with the ring box open, my eyes shimmering with delight.

The question glimmered in the water beautifully, getting a double affect as though two of the same person were asking her at once. I saw, somewhere in the distance, a flash of a camera, which meant Clay or Dojo had taken a picture.

"Oh my god!" She gasped, and looked at me, excitement filling her eyes more and more with every passing moment. I gestured behind her, and she whipped around to see the words explode into the most beautiful and planned out display ever. They made shapes and designs that no one could ever do unless they had a lot of free time.

But, Kimiko really didn't care, even if I would have hoped she was mesmerized... I was still extremely happy she turned with that expression.

"Yes! Yes of course I will Rai!" She took the ring out of the box, and handed it to me. I dropped the velvet cube, and slid the beautiful octogonal single diamond onto her finger. As soon as I stood up, she tackled me down in the grass.

By now, my energy was shot, and the rain downpoured, sizzling out the remaining brightness of the fireworks and making everyone head for the temple.

We were getting wet, our cloth was getting wet, and our food was probably drenched. Boy, I would not want to eat the sandwiches now... All that soggy bread. It'd be disgusting!

But, did we care? Nope! Of course not! We just sat there in the rain, letting it wash all of our worries away as we made out. We got to enjoy beautiful fireworks, and an awesome question... Plus some of the greatest romantic moments ever.

Making out in the rain!!

Yes... My day did suck... I didn't want the day to come at first. But, when that question had popped into my mind, I knew it would be a day I would never forget.

I had mastered the art of fire... Both in fireworks, setting up the design, and in the Dragon of Fire, the most beloved thing in my entire world...

I had figured out... The works to fire...

??

Ah, well... I hope Stormy, that you went 'ahh' at that. (giddiness) I actually finished something for once. I'm so happy! It's actually the fifth, but... I haven't gone to bed yet (tis three in the morning) so... It still is sort of my fourth.

I thank anyone who read, I will thank them EVEN MORE to the ones who review! That was dedicated to Stormy Dreamer... My trusty reviewer, who is never afraid to speak her mind!

Remember, if you want a request down, just PM me, and I will TOTALLY do it!! I love requests, they're awesome. (even though this wasn't really a request... Meh, who in the world is complaining? It's fluff!)

Thanks to all!

-zesty-


End file.
